ECONOMIC CONDITIONS OF THE FISHERIES IN ITALY. 331 
being taken to-day by my country in developing the resources of its waters, an 
interest which will eventually lead to larger appropriations from the national 
treasury for aiding this industry in a way more adequate to its possibilities and 
requirements. 
Hydrobiology and its recent discoveries have opened new horizons to the 
possibilities of what has been comprehensively called ‘‘water culture.” The 
natural depauperation is being remedied with the restocking in all waters inland, 
where new fields of fishery are suggested, such as the raising of carp in rice fields, 
as well as in the sea, evidenced by the restocking of the fjords of Norway with 
the eggs of the codfish. 
The importance of the plankton to fish life, of the flora and fauna living on 
the borders and in the bottom of waters; the relation of temperature to the 
inhabitants of the deep, which has suggested in certain localities the application 
of the thermometer to fishing; the relation of the chemical composition of water 
and of its greater or lesser saltiness to the population of the seas; the pathology 
of fishes, the application of artificially promoted diseases to obtain’ industrial 
results, such as the grafting on the pearl-producing oyster of the parasite which 
is the cause of the formation of the pearl, an original suggestion by Professor 
Issel of Italy and utilized by Herdman on the waters of the Ceylon island; the 
habits and various stages of life of different fish having partly a pelagic and partly 
a fresh-water habitat, such as the eel; the prevention of the inquination of waters 
from the refuse of industrial establishments; the reforestation of lands to pre- 
vent muddy waters that are prejudicial to the life of delicate fish—all these 
subjects are to-day far better understood and studied than ever before, not only 
by the general scientific world but also by progressive ichthyologists. 
Although the “cultivation of the water” is a far more difficult problem than 
that of the solid crust of the earth, not only because of the greater perils with 
which the former is identified, but also because we are less acquainted with the 
conditions of existence of the animals which populate the water, still it is one of 
those problems the importance of which the future will make even more evident 
and impellent. The preoccupation manifested years ago by Sir William Crookes 
with regard to scarcity or insufficiency of the staple of life confronting humanity 
in a near future need not engross the minds of economists, because it will find 
its natural solution in the increased rate of production of wheat which is 
within the sphere of reasonable possibilities, and also because human ingenuity, 
as the population of the earth increases, will develop other sources of supply of 
‘food. If in the past humanity has called upon the earth for its main sources 
of sustentation, the humanity of the future will call upon the water in a more 
intensified form for this need; and the ‘‘intensive cultivation of water” as well 
as of the earth will be a conquest probably not so remote as we may believe. 
The contribution that Italy has already given, and I hope will be able to 
give in the future in greater degree, toward this desirable end is and will be 
